Lost in the Fall
by helenofargos
Summary: (Post-season 4 finale of Supernatural, Season 1 Lost.) Team Free Will finds themselves crashed on an apparently abandoned island with around 50 other people. Why Lucifer zapped then onto this particular flight, they have no idea. Castiel can't fly away. The brothers do what they can to help. Not everyone can go for long on the island without telling their stories, though.
1. Chapter 1

Dean's head was pounding like a miniature timpani player had crawled its way inside his head while he had been sleeping. He scrunched up his face in irritation and rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to crack open his eyelids without causing any more pain. The light that struck his blurred vision was much brighter than it should have been, and he quickly shut his eyes again. _Hadn't he been on an airplane?_ Why the _hell_ were the overhead lights all on in the middle of the night? Damn planes—

No, no… something was wrong. Dean opened his eyes again. His headache was subsiding, and the timpani player was getting tired. Fortunately, that meant that he could hear everything that much better.

_Un_fortunately, that meant that he could hear everything that much better, because what he heard confirmed that what he was seeing was real. There was no plane around him. Dean was lying flat on his back in the sand. He was on a beach. _A fucking beach._ The sounds of eater crashing in the waves against the shore was not all that he heard, though. There was screaming…shouting…crying…

_What the hell happened here?_

Dean sat up and patted his arms, head, torso, and legs to make sure everything was in fact still there and in one relatively moveable piece. He sighed in relief as he managed to move his toes and bend his knees as normal. On wobbling legs, he stood up and surveyed the entire surrounding area.

The first thing he saw was pointing, yelling, and general running around. There had to have been between thirty and fifty people all trying to either help others get up or getting out of the way of other people who were trying to do so, themselves.

The second thing he noticed was the plane. Scratch that – it was maybe a third of the damn plane that he _should_ have still been inside. When it was intact, it had been an Oceanic Airlines jet, according to the magazines and cocktail napkins he had studied during the flight. He'd been terrified to look out of the window or up the aisle to see the other passengers seated in front of him. The middle of the freaking Apocalypse and he still couldn't handle commercial flights.

_Planes crash_, he remembered himself saying to his brother all those months ago on the Indy flight. Dean usually didn't mind having the right to say "I told you so", but this time was a bit different.

Then came the third thing Dean saw; a man shouted for someone to get away from the plane, then the explosion. The roar of the turbine stuttered for a moment, and he ducked and covered his ears in anticipation of the blast. The remaining fragments of the plane burst into a fireball that sent a shockwave over the beach. That snapped his brain out of its remaining haze. A jolt of adrenaline shot through the hunter as he realized the most worrisome part of all this.

Sam and Castiel were nowhere to be seen.

Of course, Dean's first instinct was to run to the most dangerous place. He hurried across the beach to the smoldering wreckage, dodging the fiery debris that had rained down moments before and still were smoking at his feet. He passed a blonde woman, shrieking in pure panic and, probably, for a lack of enough collected thought to do anything else. A man, balding and bleeding from a gash over his eyebrow and under his cheekbone, looked like he was surprised at his own ability to still move.

_Sam, Sam, __**Sam**__ –where the hell are you?_ The thought echoed over and over in Dean's head.

"Dean!" a voice shouted, just a few yards behind him. Dean whirled around to see his brother carrying a dazed but conscious young woman in his arms.

"You okay, Sammy?" Dean called, unable to stop the scared crack in his voice and not bothering to care.

"Fine," Sam shouted back over the commotion. "You seen Cas?"

"Not yet."

"Find him."

Dean didn't need to be told twice. As Sam carried the woman towards the tree line at the edge of the beach, Dean turned and continued running towards the wreckage. The closer he got, the more bodies he saw. There were so _many_, and he couldn't tell if they were alive or not. He couldn't tell if they were Cas or not. The plane was still burning and where the hell _were _they and-

Dean forced himself to stop and take a few deep breaths. _Maybe he pulled one of his disappearing acts and just poofed out of here_, Dean thought. He almost hoped that the angel had. Sure, the guy healed at a ridiculous rate and basically nothing normal killed him, but that didn't mean that the guy was completely invincible.

Dean stumbled onward, helping people up and away from the debris, all the while keeping a desperate eye out for a familiar, tan trench coat and mop of brown hair.

"Hey, mister!" Dean looked up towards the tree line to see a blonde man with arms full of supplies.

"Me?"

"Yeah, you." The man shifted things around in his arms as he tried to snatch one more thing up off the ground. He coughed from the smoke in the air before making eye contact with Dean.

"Could you pick up that book by your foot?"

Dean glanced down in time to see a soggy copy of Watership Down at his heels, floating pathetically in the shallow, lapping waves. He picked up the bedraggled paperback and offered it up to the other man.

"Could you just stick that on top of the stack? Right there, yeah. Thanks, man."

"Hey," Dean blurted as the man turned around to leave, "have you seen a guy about so tall"—he gestured a couple of inches below the top of his own head – "and wearing a suit and a trench coat?"

The man smiled grimly. "Yeah, the guy's about twenty yards over that way." He nodded in the direction of a pile of rubble halfway to the tree line.

"He's not awake," the man added. "I think he's alive, but I figured it was best not to move the fella. He was far enough from the working parts of the plane, anyway."

Dean thanked him quickly, already rushing off towards the small cluster of metal and luggage the blonde had gestured towards.

"Thanks for saving my book!" the man called after the hunter.

As he approached the area, Dean quickly spotted the familiar figure he had been looking for in the wreckage and picked up his pace, trying to reach the rebel angel as quickly as possible. Castiel was somehow still upright in his seat and even buckled in, almost like he'd never dropped with the rest of the aircraft. A light groan escaped him when Dean reached him, as if reacting to the hunter's presence. Suddenly, Dean wasn't sure what to do. Did the rules about not moving an unconscious person after a violent accident still apply to angels? The fact that Cas was unconscious in the first place meant something was obviously wrong.

He hesitated, looking the angel over, checking for any signs of serious injury. Other than a scrape on his forehead, nothing seemed to be wrong. Dean knelt next to the airplane seat. He reached out to unbuckle the belt, but then changed his mind; if something _was_ wrong…best to not let him fall out. Even with his angel mojo, Dean wasn't sure how Cas would handle a vessel with a broken spine or something.

"Hey, Cas?" he tried, lightly tapping the angel's shoulder. "Cas? Hey, buddy, wake up." The angel murmured something under his breath and grimaced slightly.

"Come on, Cas," Dean breathed, resting his hand firmly on the angel's shoulder. A pair of familiar blue eyes slid open; Dean let out a breath of relief that he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Hey there, Cas," he said as calmly as he could manage. "You scared me there for a bit."

"Dean?" Castiel blinked and sat up straight, wincing a bit as he did so. "What…"

"The plane went down," Dean explained, withdrawing his hand. "The front and back broke off. We're…somewhere. I'm not sure where, exactly. Do you think you can move?"

Castiel squinted and looked down at himself, then around at the beach and the burning fragments of the plane. His eyes lost focus for a moment, staring at nothing in particular, like he was listening to some distant noise that no one else could hear. Breaking his odd trance, the angel fumbled with his seatbelt and slid forward in his seat. His jaw was set and his movements were tense.

"You okay, man?" Dean asked, surprised by the clear discomfort in Castiel's posture and expression. He still didn't know much about angels, but he was pretty sure he'd never seen Cas look so… pained, physically. That couldn't possibly be a good sign.

"I will be fine," Cas replied dismissively. He pushed himself into a standing position and stared out over the ocean towards the horizon.

"Did anyone else survive the crash?" he asked. "Is Sam alright?"

"Sammy's off by the rest of the plane, moving people to safety. He's okay. There's a good number of people who made it, I think. It's chaos, though."

"We ought to join the others." Cas started walking quickly across the sand, towards the smoke from the earlier explosion. Dean glanced around and grabbed a familiar-looking duffel bag from under a piece of what at one point must have been the overhead compartment, before hurrying off after Cas.

"Hey, so, uh, do you have any way of knowing where we are?" Dean called out to his companion. "Like, some angel GPS thing?"

"…I cannot tell where we are," Castiel replied, slowing so the hunter could catch up with him. "We are in the Pacific Ocean, obviously on an island. That is as much as I know."

"Okay," Dean said, trying to get the gears turning in his head. "Any way we can just zap outta here and get help?"

"You are willing to leave these people behind?" the angel countered.

"No, I'm saying that if we get coordinates for this place somehow and then just jump over to the nearest civilization on the mainland, maybe we can send a boat or something to get these folks to safety."

Castiel stopped in his tracks as they finally reached the main part of the wrecked plane. He furrowed his brow after a few seconds' pause. His confused frown turned into a wide-eyed look of nervous surprise.

"Something wrong there, Cas?"

"I cannot leave."

"You what?" It was Dean's turn to frown.

"I cannot leave," Castiel repeated. "Something is preventing me. I cannot sense the others' presences, either."

"And you usually just can on a dime, right?"

"Yes."

"So something's drained your batteries, then?" Dean asked. "We're stuck here?"

"That appears to be the situation. I can still feel my Grace, but I cannot seem to access it."

"Well," the hunter said, starting forward again, "we'd better see how we can help out, then."

Castiel's expression returned to its usual deadpan and he nodded, following Dean as they made their way towards the broken aircraft. All that they could do now was lend a hand, and they intended on doing whatever they could to quell the current chaos.

Hours passed before Dean got the chance to finally sit down and rest. There were about fifty other people still breathing. Most of them had been fixed up by a medical doctor who happened to have been on board, but some of them… well, saying they were "worse for wear" was probably an understatement. There was a man with a piece of shrapnel imbedded in his body, painfully sticking out like a third, unwanted arm. Dean hadn't seen the blonde guy after their earlier run-in, but he'd looked like he had been in okay condition then. The doctor guy had a gash on his side that he'd managed to disinfect and get stitched up right away. Hopefully it _stayed_ disinfected and stitched up, for everyone's sake. Dean and Sam had experience patching up injuries, but they weren't doctors by any means.

The sun was going to set within the next couple of hours, and Dean couldn't even fathom the idea of sleep. Even though the chaos around him had died down, his mind was still racing. How the hell were they going to get off the island? And speaking of hell, how was the rest of the world going to handle the Apocalypse while Team Free Will was stranded somewhere seemingly inescapable? _What about Lucifer?_

Dean swatted that last thought aside. It wouldn't help to worry when he, Sam, and Castiel couldn't do anything about it. The Apocalypse would have to wait until heaven's only active rebel got enough mojo back to zap them out of here.

"Hey, you, sir," said a voice behind Dean. The hunter looked over his shoulder to see two men carrying wood and kindling in their arms. One of them was muscular, with hair about the same length as Sam's and a dark, Middle-Eastern-looking skin tone; the other was skinny, blonde, and pale.

"Who, me?"

"What is your name?" the darker-skinned man asked.

"Dean."

"Dean, do you have a lighter?" The two men dropped their supplies on the sand as Dean nodded a "yes".

"Good," the man said. "Will you assist us in lighting the signal fire?"

"Sure thing." The hunter stood and approached the firewood. "What's your name?"

"I am Sayid," the man explained, "and that is Charlie." He nodded at the skinny guy, who smiled half-heartedly at Dean before stepping back and fiddling with bandage tape wrapped around the fingers of his left hand.

"Well, wish I could say it's good to meet you, but these aren't really the best circumstances," Dean said. Sayid nodded in agreement. The two of them began setting up the wood and kindling as Charlie watched, deep in thought. Three minutes and a few splinters later, Dean lit the fire. A cloud of thick, dark smoke began billowing directly upwards. Dean almost laughed at the sight; mysterious forces and thick black smoke – it was sad how comfortably familiar they were by now. Maybe he could get lucky for once. Maybe there wouldn't be any demons on this one, solitary island. _Maybe_.

But who was he kidding? Even if there were no demons, there would always be something else. There was always something unnatural about any and every location he and Sam found themselves in. No matter how much he wished, he knew that there was no escaping the things he and Sam hunted. Dean could already feel something extremely off about this island; he knew their problems were far from over.

"So," Charlie said, breaking the silence, "where're you from, Dean? Anyone with you on the flight?" Sayid shot the young man a warning glance.

"I travel a lot," Dean answered easily. "I'm from Kansas, originally. My brother and a…friend of ours were on the flight in the seats by me. They made it, though." _Not sure whether to thank God or not,_ he added silently.

"That's lucky," Charlie said. "Flying home, then?"

"Not exactly," Dean replied. "We weren't supposed to be on the plane in the first place. Flight change and stuff, you know?"

"I see." The three stared into the fire for a moment. The only noise breaking through the air were the crackling of the flames in front of them, the rushing of waves at the end of the beach, the wind in the trees, and the soft sound of someone crying in the distance. Dean didn't like all of this time that he suddenly had, left alone in his own thoughts. Especially not when the nearest booze was probably hundreds of miles away.

"I'm from all the way back in England." It almost sounded like a humorous comment, but Charlie said it in such a bleak manner that it kept Dean and Sayid from cracking a smile; both grimaced instead.

"I was trying to get my band out to L.A. for a gig," Charlie continued. "I was the only one on that plane, course."

"What's your band's name?" Dean asked, trying to keep the conversation from dying.

"Ever heard of Driveshaft?"

"Sure, I have," the hunter laughed. "My dad left one of your CDs in our car when he left the old girl with us." He turned to look Charlie up and down and said, "So you're the bassist, right?"

"Yeah, I am!" The guy's mood visibly brightened, a proud smile spreading across his face.

"You guys are pretty cool," Dean admitted. "I thought you broke up, though."

"Nah," Charlie said. "We were on a hiatus of sorts."

"Nice."

"The sun will be setting soon," Sayid said suddenly. "I will watch the fire for a while. You two should go back and eat something while we still have food pre-prepared."

"Want us to bring you something?" Charlie offered.

"No, no," Sayid said. "I will eat later." Dean nodded to him.

"See you back at camp, then, Sayid." Dean stuck his hand out for the man to shake. After a moment's hesitation, the Middle-Eastern man returned the gesture with a tight smile… or a grimace – Dean couldn't tell. He didn't really care to think about it too much, either, as his stomach protested his few-second delay in returning to camp.

Food sounded really, _really_ good.

Castiel opened his eyes to meet the sight of a blurry Dean Winchester kneeling beside him. The angel blinked a few times to adjust his vision. He had been unconscious, he immediately assessed…and he had been dreaming...or hearing something. It hardly mattered, seeing as how he couldn't remember what it had been about. Confusion. Castiel found himself confused more often in the past several months than he had for centuries. After dazedly looking over his surroundings through heavy eyelids, he opened them wide in the purest state of confusion he had experienced yet.

Dean was talking. Castiel made eye contact with him, his vessel's brain trying and failing to process what he was seeing. It took a few moments to register what the human was saying.

"...scared me there for a bit."

"Dean?" Castiel managed to grate out, voice rougher than usual. He pushed off the back of the airplane seat to sit up straight. A sharp pain lanced up his side and back, and he very nearly dropped back into the seat.

"What..." he started to ask, looking behind Dean momentarily. There was rubble, small piles of flaming, twisted metal with a backdrop made up of sand and a great body of salt water.

"The plane went down. The front and back broke off," Dean explained. "We're... somewhere. I'm not sure where, exactly. You think you can move?"

Dean was clearly worried, and even Castiel was a beginning to sense a similar feeling wash over him. What had sent the plane down? He couldn't remember sensing anything strange before drifting off to sleep beside Dean. He hadn't needed to sleep, but, once the nervous human had drifted out of consciousness, the thought of slumber had become strangely appealing. But, then…

Then, Castiel had woken up here.

He listened hard, trying to pick up anything from his brothers and sisters, hoping he could hear something of some help to him in his disoriented state. He met only silence, not a hint of chatter. Strange – he had expected the angels to be _screaming_ now that Lucifer had risen…_They must all be busy_, Castiel assumed.

He focused, then, on the matter at hand. He had read over the safety guide that Sam had been skimming through shortly after…_appearing_ on the plane, and he attempted to imitate the diagram showing how to unbuckle the seat's safety belt. There was a _click_, and the angel allowed himself a moment of triumphant satisfaction before sliding forward in the tipped seat. The pain in his side immediately shot through him again as he leaned against the edge of the seat. His shoes touched the sand.

"You okay, man?" Dean was looking at Castiel from every angle, it seemed. It was as though he had thought that Castiel would break as easily as a human in the plane crash. The angel refrained from telling Dean that he likely would have been dead, if not for his healing abilities. Maybe he didn't need to hear that.

"I will be fine," he replied. He set his jaw and stood up, ignoring another flare of pain. "Did anyone else survive the crash? Is Sam alright?"

"Sammy's off by the rest of the plane, moving people to safety," Dean explained. "There's a good number of people who made it out, I think. It's chaos, though."

"We ought to join the others," Cas told him, and set forward to find the other Winchester. Dean hurried after him.

"Hey," Dean said. The angel slowed down, and the hunter fell into step beside him. "So, uh, do you have any way of knowing where we are? Like, some angel GPS thing?"

Castiel hesitated, taking a moment to remember what "GPS" stood for, and tried reaching out with his senses. Like his earlier attempt at hearing the angels, he found nothing: no reference points, no location, no _anything_. The water looked dark and cold, however, and smelled very distinct.

"…I cannot tell where we are," the angel replied. "We are in the Pacific Ocean, obviously on an island. That is as much as I know."

"Okay…any way we can just zap outta here and get help?"

"You are willing to leave these people behind?" the angel wondered aloud. That wasn't very Winchester-like behavior.

"No –" Castiel tuned Dean out temporarily, reassured enough by that one word to return his focus to the wrecked middle section of the aircraft on the beach ahead. Once again, he tried to reach out with his Grace, to unfurl his wings into a physical dimension and fly to safety.

The angel stopped in his tracks.

Nothing. Again, he was met with _nothing_. His Grace was still there, he could feel it, but it eluded his grasp. For the first time since he woke up on the island, Cas felt a flash of true panic. His ability to take off and find help was somehow dampened; he was lost and trapped and suddenly felt so _small_.

"Something wrong there, Cas?" Dean snapped the angel out of his racing thoughts.

"I cannot leave." Castiel managed to keep his voice level.

"You what?"

"I cannot leave. Something is preventing me." The angel reached out with his mind and could not sense a single other person's soul on the island for more than a second at a time. Each one flashed through like voices on a high-speed radio scanner. It made him dizzy just trying to count the number of different ones he could pick up.

"I cannot sense the others' presences, either."

"And you usually just can on a dime, right?"

"Yes."

"So something's drained your batteries, then?" Dean asked. "We're stuck here?"

"That appears to be the situation. I can still feel my Grace, but I cannot seem to access it."

"Well," the hunter said, continuing onwards, towards the smoking wreckage ahead, "we'd better see how we can help out, then."

Castiel nodded and resisted the urge to wince in pain as he followed the hunter. Help. Yes, he could still help. There was always that. The Winchesters must have rubbed off on him already, the angel realized, smiling a little as he walked into dangerous territory once again because of them. For some reason, he didn't entirely mind. Maybe the growing empathy inside him was a good thing.

So he helped. He entered the chaos behind Dean and immediately found a man trapped under a large piece of debris. He lifted the metal and helped the man up with his free hand. The man hadn't noticed Castiel's superior strength as he scrambled to safety, to the angel's relief. The brothers would want him to hold his identity back from the other survivors, or so he assumed. The angel did his best to help as many others as possible, until his own body's pain became unbearable. He leaned against a makeshift shelter—one of several which had been assembled since the crash—to rest and inspect his vessel. The tan coat was shrugged off along with his suit jacket, and he carefully un-tucked his shirt. The white material was stained red all along his right side, and he hissed as he pulled the fabric away from his skin. His vessel's flesh was bruised black and blue and sickly shades of yellow-gray. There was an odd gash along his ribcage, too, which was still bleeding sluggishly. _What could have caused that?_ Castiel placed his hand on the skin on either side of the wound and focused his healing energy onto it.

His weakness startled him. He dropped his arm, suddenly exhausted and out of breath. The wound had shrunk substantially, but it was still there, bleeding and angry and, above all things, painful. A shaking sigh escaped him. Right then, Castiel felt extremely _mortal_…human, even. It was unsettling, to say the least, and he had no idea what to do about it. He needed one of the Winchesters there to look at it and make sure it could be taken care of. His vision was swimming, and he closed his eyes to quell a sudden rush of nausea.

"That's a nasty wound you've got there," said a calm, amiable voice from above the angel. Castiel's eyes shot open again. He hadn't heard anyone walking through the sand and rocks to reach him.

"It is not… pleasant, no," Castiel admitted, looking up to see the man towering above him. He had black, short hair and dark eyes. His skin was lightly tanned and his face was clearly in need of a shave, giving him a neglected appearance.

"May I look at it?"

Castiel tilted his head, squinting against the glare of the setting sun.

"Do you know how to treat it?" the angel asked.

"I'm a doctor," the man explained, and Castiel nodded in return.

"Then I consent to letting you examine it. Just…please do be careful." The doctor man nodded and kneeled down to look at the angel.

"My name is Jack," the man supplied.

"I am Castiel."

The doctor poked lightly at parts of the bruised skin, and received a pained hiss in response. He studied the angel's side for a moment longer before he sighed and pulled back.

"Well, Castiel," Jack sighed, rocking back on his heels, "it's not as scary as it could be"–_or as it was, _Castiel supplied internally–"so I'm going to find something to bandage it up with. There should be something around here…"

He trailed off, rummaging through an open suitcase. He produced a washcloth and two long neckties and tied a makeshift bandage around the angel's torso.

"I don't have antiseptic on me," he apologized while he secured the ties. "Maybe we can dig some supplies out of the plane, but in the meantime, do your best to keep this clean. I saw you helping out earlier." He gave one last tug and moved his hands away, apparently satisfied. "You had to have irritated this thing quite a bit, lifting and dragging and carrying people and plane parts around like that."

"Yes, I suppose that that is true," Castiel replied with a half-shrug-half-wince.

"Take it easy now, okay?" The doctor stood up and held out his hand to help Castiel to his feet. The angel bit back a groan as he rose again. He still couldn't understand his sudden weakness.

"No more helping out like that tonight, Castiel. You've done a great job already. You deserve some rest."

Castiel nodded. Yes. Yes, that sounded like a good plan.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam jolted back to awareness to the feeling of someone cautiously tapping his shoulder. Someone was kneeling beside him. Panic and adrenaline shot through his veins and his eyes snapped open. Where was he? _Panic room. Church. Ruby. Lilith. Blood, Dean, more blood, then the blinding light and a feeling of burning and freezing all at once. Then the plane…_

Ah. That was it: the plane. The darkness that took him just as the plane started to go down. There was blue sky above him and sand beneath him. _Land_, he thought, _we crashed and landed on a beach. _Relieved to have pieced the events together, he brought himself back into the current moment. The person kneeling beside his head was a woman. She was blond, young – maybe in her early twenties – and out of breath. She choked back sobs, trying hard to keep her composure while she watched the commotion unfolding further down the beach.

"Oh, good," she sighed. "You're alive. I was worried they'd put me by a dying man."

"No," Sam groaned as he sat up, "not dead quite yet."

"I mean, I can see that now," the woman mused. She had a thick Australian accent and a thin smile that seemed to be involuntarily shaking. Sam looked here over again and realized a new detail – from the disproportionate swell of her stomach, he could tell she was pregnant, and _very _far along.

"I'm Sam." The hunter held out his hand to her. She grinned wider and shook it.

"I'm Claire," she replied. "Pleasure to meet you, despite the circumstances."

"Are there enough people helping out?" Sam looked over the smoking metal and still-screaming chaos.

"Probably not," she said. "If you can move around, you should go get people away from the crash site."

Sam eyed her again as she looked blankly out at the ocean horizon. She wiped the corner of one eye, smudging her subtle makeup.

"You going to be alright by yourself?" Sam asked. Claire looked up at him with a half-smile and tired eyes.

"Yeah, think I will be…for now, at least."

Sam nodded and stood up, brushing himself off before leaping right into action.

He had been moving his first person away from the still-intact part of the cabin when Dead had run up to him, looking for Castiel. Sam had blanked, realizing that he hadn't seen the angel once in all of the wreckage. Before he had time to worry, Dean took off again, leaving Sam to help himself as well as the woman leaning on him. He shook it off, trusting his brother to find Castiel while he took care of things here, and continued making his way up the beach.

Nearly an hour had passed before Sam was told to stop looking for survivors. He was assigned to ripping clean shirts for bandages by a man claiming to be a doctor. Sam was glad to oblige, returning to his spot next to Claire with a pile of shirts. By that point, he wanted company – preferably living company. The pregnant woman smiled at him, much more composed than she had been previously, and offered to help out.

"You look like you know what you're doing," she commented as he ripped his fifth bandage, trying to strike up a conversation. He nodded.

"I kind of do, yeah." He wasn't about to tell her how regularly he did this, that he had probably stitched up more wounds than the doctor had. He _wasn't_ about to complain how these were the worst kind of shirts to have on hand for bandages. He simply smiled instead.

"Soldier, then?" Claire asked. Sam furrowed his brow and looked at her, confused.

"Were you a soldier?" she clarified. Sam grimaced.

"Something like that, yeah."

"American?"

"Yeah. I'm from Kansas."

Claire laughed half-heartedly. "Like Clark Kent?"

Sam raised an eyebrow and responded with, "I didn't think you'd know where Kansas was."

"I grew up on comics! Superheroes were cool when I was little," she shot back, bumping Sam's arm with her fist. Claire giggled, and Sam smiled back at her. Their eyes lingered on each other for a moment before returning to their work.

"Look at me, buddyin' up with you before I even know who you are," Claire remarked. "Though I suppose nothing's wrong with some jokes between strangers after your plane's just crashed on a random beach in the Pacific." She sighed again and looked forlornly down at her hands as she tore the fabric.

"Hey, desperate times," Sam replied. "You could be running around screaming or catatonic right now. I'd say talking to someone is a pretty good way of coping. No one's judging." The woman smiled as she tore the last piece of fabric in her hand into a perfect strip.

"Ha! How's that for unsteady hands?" she grinned.

"Great," Sam replied, taking it from her and putting it with the rest. "I should get these over to that doctor."

"Yeah," Claire told him, "you should. Thanks for putting me to some use, mate. I needed it."

Sam smiled, nodded, and walked back to where the shelters were being constructed. The moment he spotted the doctor, he quickened his stride to catch up with the other man. His feet sank and slid in the dry sand, and his legs felt unsteady, but he pushed forward as best he could. He was weak, and just kept getting weaker, his addiction starting to take its toll on his body already. Ruby was gone, and with her, his daily dose of demon blood. The urges were just starting to claw at his mind; his body was aching for it, but the adrenaline rush from the urgency of the situation kept him distracted enough. He hadn't given it much thought for the majority of the morning, or afternoon, or whatever part of the day he had spent on the beach running around in the bright, hot sunlight.

"Hey – Sam, was it?" the doctor called out as he spotted the hunter.

"Yeah," he said. "I've got those bandage strips you wanted."

"Thanks so much," the doctor mumbled, taking the strips of cloth from Sam and laying them down on top of a blanket - one of those too-soft, in-flight blankets for overnight flights. Sam was surprised any of those had avoided being burnt in the crash.

"These are actually... really great," the doctor told him, looking up at the hunter; he was clearly impressed. "Could you possibly help me keep pressure on this guy's arm while I get some thread out?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure thing."

The man on the ground was out cold, though he seemed to have no other injuries besides his left arm, which was mottled purple, black, blue, and various shades of red around the gash in his bicep. Sam wrapped his hands around the area and pressed down. He had done this more times than he'd like to think about, for both himself and Dean, and, considering how their luck had been going, it was a trend that would likely never stop.

Sam was, at least, thankful that he didn't have to patch up his brother this one time. Thankful that he didn't know the guy in front of him. Thankful this set of stitches wasn't for either of the Winchesters—that this didn't even seem to be their fault for once. He stopped his thoughts there, attempts at optimism ringing hollow. Sam sighed and increased pressure on the man's wound, because that was all he could do.

"How are you holding up, then?" the doctor asked him.

"I'm doing alright, actually." It was less of a lie than usual.

The doctor shifted his weight, trying to thread the needle with unsteady hands.

"I never caught your name," Sam said casually.

"Jack," the doctor replied. He slipped the thread through the eye of the needle, finally, and let out the breath he had been holding.

"Jack!" Someone was shouting from across the crowded stretch of sand. "We need you over here!"

"Just a moment," he called back. Stress showed clearly on his face as his eyes wandered to Sam and the injured man on the ground.

"I can get this guy's wound fixed up, if you want, Jack," Sam offered before he could think. "I've done this a hundred times before. Seriously."

"Are you-"

"Not a doctor, not a nurse. Just experienced, okay?"

Jack eyed the hunter suspiciously.

"They might need you over there," Sam reasoned, "and we don't need anyone else dying today. I can handle this."

Jack looked into Sam's eyes for a moment, still uncertain. _Shit_, Sam thought. _Spoke too soon. He'll ask questions, we'll waste time, and this guy might die with or without stitches in him._

"Okay, Sam," Jack said hesitantly. "You get me if anything goes wrong, okay?"—he started to get up, then looked back to Sam again—"If it goes fine, you get me anyway."

The hunter nodded, surprised.

"I'm trusting you."

"You can count on me," Sam assured him. The doctor continued to look at the injured man with a calculating stare.

"Go, Jack." He blinked at Sam, nodded, and took off in the direction of the voice that had called to him earlier. Sam reassessed the man's injury and immediately got to work.

Certainly, he knew this kind of thing too well, seemed too calm, and was too familiar with injuries; he would have to explain himself to Jack, eventually, of course. Nothing about this was going to be easy – the whole waiting for help thing – but Sam would be damned if he wasn't going to put himself to use every chance that he got. Maybe he was worrying too much…he still couldn't stop himself from doing so.

He didn't let himself laugh at the irony of his brain's word choice. _Damned_…he could worry about the Apocalypse later.

The wounded man lying in front of him had a nasty gash across his torso, but it was no worse than what the hunter was used to seeing. The torn flesh was sewn up carefully and neatly within a few minutes. Sam wiped the majority of the blood off his hands and stood up, scanning the area for Jack. He spotted the black-haired doctor already approaching him, almost dragging his feet, clearly falling off his adrenaline high.

"Hey, Sam," he called out. "How's your guy faring?" The doctor's hands were clean, freshly washed, which made them contrast sharply with his bloodied shirt and soot-smudged face.

"Just fine," Sam replied as the doctor came to a halt. "He's still out cold, but he should be alright when he wakes up."

Jack knelt down to look at the stitches. His eyebrows shot up and he turned to look at Sam.

"These are impeccably done, Sam," Jack told him, clearly astonished. "You've really had no experience in the medical field?"

"Not… the professional field, no," Sam admitted.

"Well, right now, as long as you're helping, I don't care how you learned all of this," the doctor said with an exhausted sigh. "Thanks, man."

"It's no problem. Really."

"I mean it." Jack stood and shook the hunter's hand.

"I'm glad to help," Sam assured him. The doctor nodded and sighed again. Sam wanted to offer to make rounds for the man, though he had no idea if all of the survivors had been found yet. There could still be people trapped inside the middle section of the plane, Sam thought. Following the doctor's troubled gaze, he realized Jack was thinking the same thing, and realized that there would be no rest in the other man's near future. The hunter found himself grimacing at the sudden rush of sympathy he felt for Jack. They both felt obligated to help, trying to make up for being less-than-first-rate versions of themselves for the past few months. Of course, that might have just been Sam projecting his own feelings onto his new acquaintance.

Sam shook his head subtly as he thought to himself. There were more pressing things to focus on.

"We ought to move this guy closer to the shelters, if all this humidity decides to turn into rain," Jack suggested, breaking the heavy silence.

"Good idea," Sam agreed. "He definitely doesn't have any broken bones or head trauma, and I think I can carry him over there." Jack nodded, looking back up towards the small, flimsy shelters that had been set up less than an hour before.

"Just be careful," the doctor said. I'm gonna go check further down the beach for any useful supplies."

"I'll see you around, then." Sam hoisted the injured man up into his arms, trying hard not to disturb the new stitches.

"Sure thing. And, Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

The hunter nodded an acknowledgement as the deadweight grew more and more difficult to hold up.

"I might need your help again, sometime."

"I'll be by the shelters, if you do," Sam told him.

"Good," Jack said with a light, apologetic smile. "Get that guy up the beach before I have to drag both of you there myself, alright? Wouldn't do for you to wear yourself out so early by just standing there." With that, the doctor turned and walked away. Sam also headed off, barely making it to the slanted beach before he had to set the injured man down. Sam collapsed alongside him, arms shaking. Jack was right; wearing himself out wouldn't do any good if his help was needed later. Sam let his eyes drift shut.

He was asleep within minutes.

He wanted some nice, hard liquor. That's all that Dean could think about. Hell, he _needed_ some damn whiskey or bourbon or scotch or even piss-weak beer as long as it was _something._ He needed to drown himself in a drink for a little while, just so he could get his mind off all the plane bullshit and the Cas-is-angel-deaf-and-can't-fly bullshit and the freaking Apocalypse bullshit. No one knew how long they would be stuck on the island, and, even just a few hours into their survival panic, everyone was getting restless. _When do we go home? When can we expect to get rescued? They had to have noticed that we're all missing, by now_.

Dean sighed in frustration. There he was, leaning against a palm tree, watching the tide roll in and out, listening to the white noise and buzz of people talking, and doing absolutely nothing. His brain was turning in circles and his whole body felt on edge.

Something was wrong about all of this, but his mind just couldn't focus enough to come up with any possible reasons for the plane crash. Dean Winchester, hunter, brother, rebel, prom dress for Heaven's Number One Angel… was almost _calm._ This isolation made him so unexpectedly and unnaturally relaxed that it bothered him. He should be jittery, doing everything in his power to get off the damn island and go back to fixing the world, but for some reason all he could do was sit and stare at the technicolor sunset.

Well, one evening of rest might do him some good, Dean figured. And why the hell shouldn't he get to enjoy just a few minutes' worth of calm? _There are plenty of reasons,_ his brain immediately supplied, and he really wanted that drink again.

A strong smell of cigarette smoke wafted up from one of the shelters, a little less than halfway down the beach. The gray-white smoke drifted up and around the side of the tarps and metal scraps. Curious, Dean made his way down the beach towards the source of the smoke. Someone had managed to salvage some cigarettes. Someone else had a lighter. Someone _else_ had no one to talk to.

The blonde man who had been rounding up supplies was sitting in front of his makeshift shelter, smoking with a contemplative look on his face. Dean stood next to him, and the man looked up. A smile spread across his face, the cigarette dangling from his lips casually.

"Hey."

"Hey," Dean replied, not making eye contact.

"Here, sit down," the man said, smoke drifting out of his mouth. "I never caught your name, mister."

"Dean," the hunter supplied. "Dean Winchester." There wasn't really a point to using an alias with anyone, and using his own name was refreshingly easy.

"Dean," the blonde echoed, smiling again. "Call me Sawyer." He held out his hand and Dean shook it in greeting, then sat down to join him on the hot sand.

"Thanks again for grabbing that book," Sawyer said. "I could use all the reading material available. It's not like we know how long we'll be here."

"No problem," Dean replied. "'S good you have a hobby."

Sawyer was looking Dean over; even though the hunter was still focused on the ocean horizon, he could still sense the blonde analyzing him. Dean let out a sigh and tried relaxing where he sat. Sawyer let out a smoky chuckle.

"You're tuckered out there, soldier."

Dean couldn't help but crack a bitter smile. "I've needed a rest for a long time, I guess," he admitted. He didn't let himself think about how his life had gotten to the point where barely surviving a plane crash onto a mysterious island was "rest".

"So have I, Dean Winchester. So have I."

The two men looked out at the sunset for a long moment. Several smaller fires were being started around the different areas around the crash site, illuminating the rapidly darkening beach. Dean let his mind wander to Sam and Cas. He hadn't seen Sam since the brief confirmation that his brother was alive. Hoping that was a good sign, Dean willed himself to relax. Sawyer was right – he was exhausted, and not just from running around all day after the plane crashed. Sure, it wasn't the best timing or circumstances, but the Winchesters and their friendly neighborhood rebel angel deserved a bit of a break.

Dean suddenly sensed that he was being watched again; the hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he felt a phantom itch crawl up his shoulders. He looked over his right shoulder to see a familiar pair of slacks and the bottom of a tan trench coat. A sigh of relief escaped him, though he hadn't realized he was holding his breath in the first place.

"Hey, Cas."

"Sam told me to find you," the angel stated.

"Damn, mister," Sawyer cut in suddenly, "I didn't notice you walk up on us."

"Yeah, he does that," Dean admitted. Then, to Castiel, "What's Sammy need me for?"

"He has been helping the other survivors by setting up shelters. He has one for the three of us."

Dean nodded.

"Alright. You tell him I'll be there in a few minutes, okay?"

The hunter looked up to meet Castiel's gaze. The poor guy looked even worse off than Dean.

"How about you sit down for a bit?" Dean suggested, patting the sand next to him. The angel studied the ground for a moment before silently joining the other two men. He sat down stiffly and stared out at the horizon, squinting with an unreadable expression.

Sawyer took another drag of his cigarette. The smoke drifted lazily through the air, appearing dark gray against the bright backdrop of the sunset. Castiel wrinkled his nose, but said nothing.

The three sat and gazed out across the ocean until the sun dipped below the red horizon. The cigarette and its stench had long since burnt out, and were replaced by the smells of burning wood and dry leaves. Nervous chatter, weeping, and crashing waves sounded faintly on the night air.

"Sam will be looking for us," Castiel stated, breaking the near-silence.

"Yeah." Dean groaned, standing up and brushing himself off. "Don't want him worrying his overgrown head any more than he has to."

"Hey. Dean, was it?" Sawyer said, ending with a yawn that he obviously tried to stifle. Dean nodded.

"If you see any other books or magazines or whatnot, I'd appreciate it if you'd send 'em my way. When you're done with them, of course."

Dean gave the man a tired attempt of a smile and nodded again. Castiel stood up behind him, clearly trying to keep out of the hunter's field of vision as he winced and rose shakily to his feet. Dean didn't see, but Sawyer definitely did. The blonde eyed the angel, curious, but didn't comment. He threw Cas a wink before smiling lopsidedly and staring at the hunter in front of him instead.

"Sure thing," Dean replied. He stuck his hand out and Sawyer shook it. "And thanks for helping me find this guy earlier," he added, jabbing a thumb at Castiel.

"I was wonderin' if that was him," Sawyer returned, smiling wider. "How're you doing?"

"My condition is… much improved," Castiel replied.

"That's good, that's good." The blonde trailed off, looking like he was still analyzing the pair he had been sitting with for the past half-hour.

Dean cleared his throat. "My brother's gonna get all freaked out if we don't head back to the rest of the shelters soon, so, uh… see you around?"

"See you around."

With that, Castiel led Dean back up the sandy beach to the few standing makeshift tents and shelters. There were all sorts of people already around them – sitting, pacing, sleeping, biting nails, holding each other as if they would just vanish if they let go. And then there was Sam, sitting by a small fire, staring into it blankly. As soon as they approached, he snapped out of his thoughts and looked up at them.

"I was beginning to think I'd have to come find you myself," Sam commented. Dean sighed and sat down on the other side of the fire across from his brother.

"Well, whatever else happens, at least this place gets good sunsets," Dean said with a wry smile. He glanced over at Cas, who refused to sit with them and had apparently decided to just stare into the woods behind the shelters. The guy had been acting strangely – even for his strange, angel self – since the crash. _Lack of Angel Radio must be messing with his head_, Dean mused.

Castiel muttered something unintelligible.

"Sorry, didn't catch that?" Dean said. The angel, instead of turning to face them and repeating himself as Dean expected him to, tensed visibly and continued his staring contest with the jungle. He slowly backed away from the side of their camp that was closest to the trees and the darkness lurking under their canopy.

"You okay there?" Sam asked, looking up at the angel. "Castiel?"

"How is that…" Cas mumbled, just loud enough for Dean to hear.

"What's wrong, man?" Dean stood and cautiously approached the angel. Castiel's eyes were wide and caught somewhere between shock and confusion.

"Cas, can you hear me?" The angel didn't react when Dean rested a hand on his shoulder.

"Cas, dammit, say something." Castiel still ignored him, but he began mouthing words silently. His eyes shifted across the tree line. As he exhaled, his silent words were raised to a whisper, it was clear that he was not speaking English. It was the same jumble of words repeating on loop.

"Is that… is that _Enochian_?" Sam asked, startled.

Dean listened closer to the strange words, frowning. "Probably," he replied.

"Hey there, is everything okay?" A man approached and stepped into the firelight. He was bald and had a scar that ran from his forehead, over his eyebrow, skipping his eye, and continuing over his cheekbone. Dean recognized him from earlier – he had been sitting peacefully on the beach, even as chaos swirled around him. _Well, everyone deals with the experience of a plane crash differently, I guess_.

"I'm not sure," Dean muttered. "I, uh, _think_ he'll be okay…maybe…"

"Looks like a panic attack," the man said, stepping closer. He appeared to be generally concerned about the still-unmoving angel. He looked Dean in the eyes with a clear air of caution about him.

"I'm John Locke."

"Dean Winchester. This is my brother, Sam." The other hunter nodded in greeting.

"His name's Castiel," Dean added, gesturing to the angel in the tan trench coat, who was still frozen stiff as a statue, except his darting eyes and shallow, quick breathing.

"Has he ever had a panic attack before?" John asked, circling around to be in Castiel's peripheral vision.

Dean stopped himself from saying _He's an angel, he's like a billion years old, how would I- _"Not that I know of, no," Dean admitted. He tried squeezing Cas's shoulder to elicit a reaction, and sighed when he had no such luck.

"Castiel, what's wrong?" John said, very calmly and clearly. Castiel's muttering broke for an instant, then started up again, more audible this time. Dean and Sam exchanged a glance. That was _definitely_ Enochian.

"My name is John Locke," the man continued, his voice absolutely level and cool. Castiel blinked.

"I've never seen something like this happen before," John admitted.

"Neither have we," Sam replied.

John tried again. "Castiel, are you alright?"

"C'mon, man," Dean whispered, giving the angel's shoulder a small shake. The angel whispered something back, and this time, it wasn't in the loop of words he had been repeating.

"In English, Cas?" The angel turned suddenly to look Dean dead in the eye, causing the hunter to stumble backwards in surprise. Castiel's eyes were wide and devoid of expression as he continued to stare Dean down.

"Something more intelligible, at least?" the hunter suggested, unable to stifle the fear that was creeping into his voice. Cas muttered again.

"Sh'ma… y'srael adonai… eloheinu…" was all that any of them could catch.

"That's Hebrew," Sam offered, "right?"

"Yeah. It sure is." John's expression darkened.

Dean glanced back and forth between them. "What's it mean?"

"It's a common, powerful prayer," the bald man explained, looking rather unsettled, "roughly translating to 'Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One'. Some Jews say it three times a day. It's basically the greatest declaration of one's faith in God."

"That ain't English, Cas," Dean murmured, unable to break eye contact with the terrified angel.

"And the smoke of… their torment… ascendeth up forever…" Castiel whispered. A visible shudder ran through his whole body, and the glaze seemed to disappear from his eyes as they rolled back in his head and his legs buckled. Dean caught him before he fell and carefully set the limp angel on the ground.

"And that was…" Dean asked.

"Weird?" Sam suggested. His brother shrugged and nodded, apprehension twisting in his gut again.

"Sounded like a bible verse to me," John commented.

"So Cas is suddenly back on the prayer train again?" Dean asked no one in particular. Sam opened his mouth to respond when a terrible noise erupted from the jungle. All three men looked up to see trees whipping around and other survivors running away from the tree line as fast as they could.

Castiel's eyes flew open at the noise, and he began whispering the looped Enochian again, instead of the Sh'ma or the random English verse. Dean knelt back down next to the angel. He had known it was ridiculous to even _consider_ the idea that this island would have nothing unnatural about it or anything out of the ordinary (for someone who wasn't a Winchester, that is). Curiosity may have killed the cat, but optimism killed the hunter.

"Castiel!" Dean exclaimed, snapping his fingers in front of the angel's face. Cas took a deep, shuddering breath. As he released it, two things happened at once: the angel blinked and shuddered again, suddenly snapping out of his trance…and the creature (or _whatever_ it had been) left, retreating towards the center of the island leaving the sound of crashing trees in its wake. Dean, Sam, and Locke shared a collective sigh of relief.

"Dean?" Castiel croaked. "What… why am I lying on the ground?"

The hunter let out a breathy, exhausted laugh before replying, "Cas, I have no fucking clue."

He stared at the now-still tree line and Castiel followed his gaze, still confused. Dean shook his head, repeating to himself:

"I have _no_ fucking clue."


End file.
